Family gap year in Costa Rica, living overseas, traveling with kids

We’ve been busy moving into a new house and a few visits with the doctors but things are settling down now, so I wanted to share a bit of our trip over the Costa Rican Independence Day (September 15th) long weekend. We are hoping to visit many different parts of the country while we’re here, and so this first adventure took us to the Arenal area which includes the town of La Fortuna located at the base of Arenal Volcano. I had been there a couple of times before on previous trips as it’s quite a popular tourist area, but it was a first for the rest of the family, and it did not disappoint! It was about a 2 and a 1/2 hour drive north of Atenas along narrow windy mountain roads with beautiful vistas at each turn…though also sometimes harrowing with cars trying to pass each other on these hilly roads. The area offers fantastic hiking, horseback riding, zip lining and canopy tours, wildlife viewing, hot springs and more!

La Fortuna waterfall

Our AirBnB house was about 3km out of town on a dirt road with views of the volcano from our front porch. It was perfect…and our hosts Lidiana and Eddie were the sweetest couple and made sure we were making the most of our time.

The first night Eddie invited us to come watch the sloth he had rescued (which they named “bodoque” which in this part of the world roughly translates to ‘small cute round thing’) come down from the tree and eat her dinner. It was AMAZING! Who gets to see a sloth in the wild lumber slowly from her comfy spot up in the tree down the branch and hang out directly in front of us to eat her dinner?! I think the sloth seems a pretty good representation of the Tico culture – very chill. The kids were excited to learn that sloths only go to the ground to pee and poop so that was the topic of conservation for most of the remainder of the night. We also found a bunch of frogs and toads with Eddie’s help in our little yard (Oscar was thrilled), and he even went and found a Red Eyed Tree Frog and brought it to the house to show us. I didn’t realize how camouflaged they are when they are not moving – we had to wake him up to see the red eyes and feet. It seemed like we were in an infomercial for visiting Costa Rica!

Two toed sloth “Bodoque” enjoying flowers for dinner

Red Eyed Tree Frog!Sleepy red eyed tree frog

The next day we visited La Fortuna Waterfall and hiked all the way to the bottom and enjoyed a dip in the refreshing pool at the base of the falls. You could even see trout in the water it was so clear. I was impressed by how beautiful the park was and how well-maintained the trail was, and even more impressed that Oscar hiked back UP the 500 steps without needing any piggy back rides. Even Alice hiked most of the way back up! People, these are major milestones for us! We are excited that they enjoy hiking and being in nature…though Alice does get freaked out about ‘buggies’ every now and then.

Our little hiker wanted a picture taken of herself.

Our last adventure for the weekend was a visit to the natural hot springs. With the volcano nearby, there are many hot springs in the area and some beautiful hot spring resorts that you can pay to visit and enjoy (i.e. Baldi, Tabacón) hopping from pool to pool figuring out which temperature suits you best. They are super nice and most offer lunch or dinner as well so people can spend the majority of a day there. Many of the hotels even pipe in the warm water to their pools. However, we opted for the free hot springs across the street from Tabacón rather than shelling out about $100 for the four of us to spend an hour or two swimming at one of the nicer places. What a little gem this was! We went in without any expectations and found a little oasis of mostly Tico families enjoying a lazy Sunday wading and relaxing in the river that conveniently offers tons of small pools for everyone to have their now little slice of relaxation. Next time, we’ll bring lunch and some cold beverages so we can spend a bit more time there!

Unbelievable! I love waterfalls and Hot Springs! So excited and happy for all of you in paradise! Love you all, Barbie. I absolutely love this idea of blogging. You are an excellent writer and it is so enjoyable!